“Palestine?”

The term “Palestine” came from the name that the conquering Roman Empire gave the ancient Land of Israel in an attempt to obliterate and de-legitimize the Jewish presence in the Holy Land. The name “Palestine” was invented in the year 135 C.E.  Before it was known as Judea, which was the southern kingdom of ancient Israel. The Roman Procurator in charge of the Judean-Israel territories was so angry at the Jews for revolting that he called for his historians and asked them who were the worst enemies of the Jews in their past history. The scribes said, “the Philistines.”  Thus, the Procurator declared that Land of Israel would from then forward be called “Philistia” [further bastardized into “Palaistina”] to dishonor the Jews and obliterate their history. Hence the name “Palestine.” 

  One more thing. Very often one hears the revisionists and propagandists finding ancient historical links between the “Philistines” and the Arab “Palestinians.”  There is no truth to this claim! The Philistines were one of a number of Sea Peoples who reached the eastern Mediterranean region approximately 1250-1100 B.C.E.  They were actually an amalgamation of various ethnic groups, primarily of Aegean and south-east European origin [Greece, Crete and Western Turkey] … but surely not of Arabian origin!  These Philistines were not Arab… and neither was Goliath! The Arabs of “Palestine” are just that… Arabs!  And these Arabs of “Palestine” have about as much historical roots to the ancient Philistines as Yasser Arafat has to the Eskimos! 

  The ancient, indigenous inhabitants of Palestine are long perished from the earth. Canaanites, Phoencians, and then Philistines, all were dominated by the Israelites before 1060 B.C.E.  Most of these cultural identities dissolved completely by the neo-Babylonian age, or, the 6th century B.C.E.  Arabs weren’t even in Palestine until the mid-7th century C.E., over a thousand years later, after Palestine’s 1,300-year Jewish history. Arabs later living in Palestine never developed themselves or the land, but remained nomadic and quasi-primitive

  Even the word “Palestine” has no meaning in Arabic – every word in Arabic has some meaning deriving from the Koran, but the word “Palestine” does not. If anything, the name “Palestine” was associated with Jews. In the years leading up to the rebirth of Israel in 1948, those who spoke of “Palestinians” were nearly always referring to the region’s Jewish residents. For example, the “Palestine Post” was a Jewish daily newspaper. The “Palestine Brigade [Regiment]” were composed exclusively of Jewish volunteers in the British Army. In fact, Arab leaders rejected the notion of a unique “Palestinian Arab” identity, insisting that Palestine was merely a part of “Greater Syria.”  

THE RETURN TO ZION
… a return through both time and space to their ancestral homeland

The Land of Israel was never devoid of Jews, although at times, only in the tens of thousands. This was because the land was virtually uninhabitable when the Jews once again began their God-given right AND duty to return en masse to the land of their forefathers (the Zionist Movement) in the 1880s.  The silly rhetoric about a massive Arab presence being overrun by “invading Jews” is quickly dispelled by Mark Twain, who visited the area in 1867.  From his book, “The Innocents Abroad”…  “A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds… a silent mournful expanse…. a desolation…. we never saw a human being on the whole route…. hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.” 

The Jews did not displace anyone, because very few of the people who were there actually owned the land. Most were absentee owners residing elsewhere. Another fact hardly mentioned by the “new historians” is that the arriving Jews never threw anyone off any land.  All land was purchased legally from the original owners… whether they be from the “Palestine” itself or elsewhere. Furthermore, top dollar was paid for this land which, in many cases, was uninhabited and hardly more than swamp land and rocky terrain. Only about 120,000 Arabs resided in an area that now comprises the State of Israel, Jordan and the so-called “West Bank” [Judea and Samaria] in between. By 1890, the number of  Jews who had settled in Palestine reached 50,000 and, by 1907, numbered 100,000.  In Jerusalem alone the Jews numbered more than 25,000, out of a total population in the city of only 40,000 Jews, Christians and Arabs. The Arabs were, however, a majority of the sparsely populated countryside abutting Jerusalem..

1880’s

  Palestine’s early Jewish Zionists were idealistic pioneers who arrived in pre-state Israel with every intention of living in peace alongside their Arab neighbors and upgrading the quality of life for all of the land’s inhabitants. These pre-Israel Zionists (and later, Israelis) had tried to develop peacefully for the dual benefit of Jews and Arabs in the land.  But the Arab leadership always, starting in the earliest days, took the low road of insisting that the only solution was for the Jews to get out, even if that meant continued poverty and stagnation.  When Arab demands were not met, they always resorted to violence. 

  At the beginning of the 20th century, there were practically no Arabs in the Holy Land. When General Allenby, the commander of the British military forces, conquered Palestine in 1917-1918, only about 5000 Arabs resided there. The Arabs who now claim to be natives of the Holy Land have migrated to Palestine after 1918, from neighboring Arab countries, predominantly from areas now known as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. None of these countries existed as nations prior to 1913. They were nothing but a disorganized collection of tribes, constantly terrorizing each other, trying to seize land from their neighbors. Unfortunately, those Arab immigrants, imported into the Holy Land their age-old culture of terrorizing neighbors to seize land. Many of them were social outcasts and criminals who could not find jobs in their own countries so they searched for their luck elsewhere. They were accepted by the British regime as a source of cheap labor and were allowed to settle on unoccupied Jewish land in Palestine.

   The vast majority of Arabs came to the area after these early Zionist pioneers began draining the malaria-infested swamps (above photo) and rebuilding the land!  In doing so, these Jews created the economic opportunities and medical availabilities which attracted still more Arabs from both surrounding territories and far-away lands! In fact, over 90% of the Arabs migrated there within the last one hundred years.  Most of the so-called “Palestinians” are in fact interlopers and squatters from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq – and others places – mostly in the 1920s and 1930s who simply took possession of pieces of land. So much for their unfounded claims that they have been there since “time immemorial!”  The real problem facing those Arabs today is not the lack of a homeland. The historical root-cause of their problem and frustration is the fact that the countries they came from have not agreed to accept them back in. This is why so many of them live, up until today, in refugee camps, in neighboring Arab countries, lacking fundamental civil rights. In their frustration they feel that the only hope and choice they have is to try and steal someone else’s country!

  Yet while the returning Jews were highly motivated to restore the land, the Arabs seethed with envy and hatred  because they lacked both the leadership to inspire or motivate them for they were, in fact, historical strangers to this land!  Unlike the Jews, those Arabs who immigrated there had no ancient attachments to or historical memories of this homeland … this ancient Land of the Jews! 

 In Conclusion: 

  There was no “Arab Palestinian” history before the Arabs created one somewhat after 1948 but especially after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War!  In an interview with the Dutch newspaper “Trau” (March 31, 1977), PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said, “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism. It is also been a “conceptual” war for ownership of the term “Palestinian” which has been transferred over to the Arabs whereas, before 1967, “Palestine” has always been synonymous with Eretz Israel and the Land of Israel. 

  Archeological sites to this very day continue to yield artifacts with Hebrew writing, not some fictitious “Palestinian” or Arabic text!  The so-called “Palestinian” Arabs were simply then, as they are now,  Arabs no different culturally, historically or ethnically from other Arabs living in any of the 24 Arab countries from which they emigrated.  The suggestion that the “Palestinians” are some sub-group of Arabs with their own unique identity is pure fiction!  Great propaganda… but still pure fiction!  And had not the Arabs continued to brainwash generation upon generation into believing this HISTORICAL HOGWASH about some ancient “Arab Palestinian” ties to the Holy Land, most could have gotten themselves a real life by now with much less bloodshed and suffering for everyone concerned!  

 Click HERE, HERE and HERE for more on the myth of a “Palestinian People.”‘

Originally published on Masada2000: http://web.archive.org/web/20030323042803/http://www.masada2000.com/